Abbeyleix Manor Hotel (Co.Laois)

“The Abbeyleix Manor hotel is within easy walking distance to the charming heritage town of Abbeyleix, just 15km from Portlaoise town centre and within easy distance of Dublin and Cork…The Abbeyleix Manor Hotel, has been owned and managed by the Kent family, for over 25 years.” Fox hunting is still (shamefully) legal in both Ireland and Northern Ireland, and the Abbeyleix Manor is central to the Laois Foxhounds (a hunt formed from several amalgamations and formerly known as the Queen’s County Hunt).  According to a breathless November 2023 puff-piece in the pro-hunt Irish Field “THE Laois opening meet has to be one of our favourite days on the hunting calendar. Despite the fact that they meet at the modern Abbeyleix Manor Hotel on the old Cork road, it has an air of old fashioned elegance…As we arrived, the lounge was brimming with riders and their supporters waiting for the off.” The Kents routinely provide the hunt with refreshments, and the hotel has hosted the hunt’s fundraising Hunt ball for a number of years (and did so again in 2025), and have held a fox hunt table quiz as well as publicising foxhunt meets on its Facebook page.